That, she felt certain, was flirtation. It calmed her, setting her back into territory that she could deal with more easily--she'd grown comfortable with their philosophical conversations, discussing facets of possibilities, and this shift toward flirtation felt like more of the same, but without the same cordial distance they'd had before.

She felt reassured, too, that he accepted and invited the complexity of her. All people were complicated, often self-contradictory, and yet it was easy to diminish people into just one or two of their traits. To men, she'd been the madonna or the whore, usually both. To her sisters, she was the foolish little girl, the manipulative actress, or the competent-enough secondary administrator of castle affairs when Morana was away. She didn't often get to be a philosopher or a playful prankster. She felt all the more unseen whenever she was melancholy. It didn't fit into how people saw her, no matter how often she was melancholy.

Rising to her feet, she stepped around the chessboard and crossed to him, sitting down lightly across his lap. "All of those and more," she echoed, as confirmation. "You certainly are a gentleman, at least to me. And I do not doubt that you are and have been a monster." Most people, she was certain, had the capacity to be monsters--or to be kind. She thought that at least Dracula would be a more tasteful monster than the ones she'd known before.

Draping a gentle arm over his shoulder, she met his eyes. She still felt afraid, but she still wanted.